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I Was Born This Way

Lady Gaga is so right…. All too often, those of us with mental illness are made to feel smaller, lesser, or dumber by both well-meaning loved ones and not-so-well-meaning bigots. And we’re not. We are neuro-chemically challenged, cerebrally stunned, brain-bothered, and cranially confounded. But we are not defective.

When my mental illness took hold, I was studying Latin, something I’d always wanted to try. And I learned that the word “defect” comes from Latin and means “fail to do.” But in what exactly do we “fail?” After all, to fail implies “to try but not achieve.” With our mental illnesses, we hold jobs, establish relationships, do chores, pay taxes, utilize services and so on, forever. Are those failures? Our bodies function without our conscious choice: breathing, replenishing, constantly building. Are those failures? Our spirits (souls) grieve, hate, and love. Are our glorious feelings failures, too?

No. We are not magical beings from elven realms. We cannot, as fantasy writers and role-playing gamers do, seize the mighty Orb of Zappa and make ourselves “perfect,” without blemish, defect, or difference. When possible we prepare for and fight against our life circumstances. But when all is said and done, if something happens without our conscious choice, without our signature, without our will, wherein is the failure to do? What is this thing we’re supposed to have done, but didn’t?

Are we supposed to have made ourselves without mental illness, with perfect genetics? Are we gifted with the meta-ability to chromosomally manipulate our DNA and RNA to build our beings while still embryos? And what is “perfect” genetic structure? Everyone who tried to establish that ideal created holocausts. It is not within our power to “become as gods” and cure ourselves before birth.

So then why can’t mental illness be labeled as a condition of birth, even though it usually appears after decades elapse? Every day, science demonstrates the genetic component of mental illness. Family studies document higher rates of mental illness in many families with those particular genealogies. And there are instances wherein mental illness appears randomly. Why can’t it, as one caller to MHA suggested, be considered in the same light as autism—not just in the DSM-V, but in our hearts and social service programs?

Imagine the revolution…and the evolution of thought. No more stigma or dearth…it’s just an issue of birth. And then we are on the right track, baby.